This evening I watched a cyclist doing really stupid things. I really wished there was something I could have done to educate him. But, I was soo teed off I don’t think it would have been well received.

In order of egregiousness/danger, I watched him ride COUNTERCLOCKWISE around Allegheny Center. Dude, it might save you a block or two, but riding contraflow in the traffic lanes around blind corners is just plain stupid. And dangerous. And scary. And it reflects poorly on all of us. Could you please find an alternate route? We can help.

And two blocks earlier, when you hit that silver sedan? You were lucky he did not stop to look at the damage or file a report, because you were wrong. There was no reason for you to be riding the yellow line, when your lane and the lane to the right were moving freely. Yes, I know you wanted to make an illegal left a block further up the road, but the motorist had the right to make his left turn too. You threw up your arms and acted outraged, but you were riding in the wrong lane position, and you were at fault. You got off lucky.

I really wished I had a free pass for the cycle savvy courses this weekend that I could have offered you. Attending the classes would have made you a safer cyclist, and made the roads safer for all of us.

The scariest part of all this for me? I witnessed your riding behavior for less than a minute, while waiting for the traffic signal to change,

Please, if you don’t know how to ride responsibly, could you make it a priority to do so? We can recommend resources that could help.

You mean he was riding clockwise? Normally the traffic flows counterclockwise around Allegheny Center.

Anyhow… Just witnessed a guy in Bellevue this morning swerve around the traffic in a 15 mph school zone (the cars were doing the speed limit), then blow through the double red light at Lincoln and Fremont, with no helmet of course. Dude you give all the cyclists a bad name.

I honestly think we should call out cyclists (or anyone) who violates traffic laws- I frequently find myself shouting out to motorists things like “four feet” or “RED LIGHT”. And have done the same for cyclists- plus with a cyclist, they will probably hear me.

Every city’s got them… the thread in Chicago is called “Think of this as a Missed Connection.” There’s usually a daily update of some Unsavvy BS. :( They are up to page 64 after two or so years. Sometimes, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.

Saturday afternoon we were riding back from Elizabeth along the trail. Single file about ~13-15 mph. We were about 1/2 mile from the Waterfront. Coming the other way an older couple toodling along at a slower speed and not doing so in a terribly straight line but not an issue.

Another cyclist coming from behind them at about the same 15mph as we were going. Rather than slow to allow for a smooth pass, the cyclist pulled into our oncoming lane. This caused us to have to lock up the brakes and try not to cause a bike pile up.

Saw a couple instances of this type of thing downtown this morning on the ride in. 2 riders riding against the flow of traffic, 1 on Forbes near Wood, 1 on Wood near Fifth (who was riding in the incoming lane to go around a line of vehicles waiting for the light). Maybe folks were up late watching the Bucs, but it was unusual enough to note.

Riding on Murray Saturday I went past a rider riding against the flow — “Dude, wrong way.” The guy seemed very dude-like, no helmet. Then, a rider behind me told me she knew him, and he said he does it so he can see the cars coming. Tsk, tsk, tsk… Riding really close to the parked cars, too, unaware that the most likely bad thing to happen to him is getting doored. Let’s behave ourselves out there!
Pedestrians walk AGAINST traffic, cyclists ride WITH traffic.

Was heading through Oakland the other night after dark, waiting at the light on Bayard at Neville saw a man in a black top and grey pants with no lights (nor helmet fwiw)–I only saw him because his bike was just chrome-y enough to shine in the headlights of the car in front of me. He had just turned, and as soon as he was straightened out in the lane, looked back down at the phone in his hand. No lights + dark clothing + self-inflicted night-blindness? Way to go…

I got to chase down someone for salmoning today… I was patiently waiting for a safe opportunity to cross an intersection and get in an appropriate lane; my jaw dropped when this guy just rode right out into traffic as if it wasn’t even there.

I think I successfully got my point across that riding in the wrong direction between two lanes of moving traffic was about as dumb as it gets. He didn’t respond to me.

I wish I knew how to get through to the salmons, cat 6er’s, etc. I agree with the statements above-it’s all about education.

Since there should be a strong motivation for self-preservation, if we could get some of the statistics out there too that might help. We just need good stats:)

For the salmoners and sidewalk riders, one of the main causes of bike fatalities/serious accidents are those two activities – basically riding against traffic.

We’ve seen that for ourselves in Pgh over the past year. They THINK they are being safe when in actuality they are being incredibly unsafe (especially the sidewalk riders). We just don’t have exact, nationwide figures yet to really slam this point home.

In the AM, I come down inbound on 5th past the Birmingham Bridge, I take the lane.

When I get to the bottom of the hill and start coming back up, I move to the almost-always-empty parking lane and let the cars pass me as I start up the hill. (Slowly. Of course. This is me we’re talking about.)

Today, as I moved right, I heard a voice coming from my right just behind me. A bicylist was passing me on the right.

He was apologetic, but damn, it would have hurt if it happened just a little differently.

Coming down Forbes at Wood around 9:45 this a.m., middle aged dude squeezes past a truck trying to make a right turn onto Wood. Dressed in black, black bike, no lights or reflectors front or rear. Of course no helmet.

What with the construction right there, there is not a lot of space to do any squeezing. The truck had to swing a little bit left to get around the construction fence that juts out into the corner, so this guy had maybe five, six feet of horizontal space to fit a three-foot-wide bike through, next to a moving something-the-size-of-a-cement-truck, and doing it at better than a jogging pace, while the truck was moving at a fast walk.

He was just damn lucky he didn’t become a squished cyclist, either under the wheels, or between the truck and a light post. And while 10am is broad daylight, I can just see this guy riding the same rig in the same get-up at 10pm, pure ninja, with the same idiot approach to riding in the city.

I was walking on East Carson during lunch, around the 1500 block. I looked up to see what I first thought was a bus buzzing a cyclist within about a foot.

As I watched the scene play out, hoping that I didn’t become a witness to an accident, it seems that the cyclist was passing the bus. This section of East Carson is very narrow, I wouldn’t have put myself in that spot. The bus driver responded with a short blat of the horn and they both moved on without incident.